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Really ? It's been a strange year, I figured anything could happen especially given it's unholy rise to fame from the Anime so I had fully expect it to enter at number 10.

Besides, as people kept reminding me, popularity and quality are two different things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kuroishinigami

Pretty surprised that ame no hi no iris manage to get that high being a non-serialized series. Never heard about okalt logic and idolizing too. Are those two series good?

Second, I'm actually glad we get some new names and faces this year

EDIT:

Funny, given Haruhi's God-like sales I would had figure her return to be more of a threat, but the title barely made an impression. Their positions were in the lower end of the top ten while SAO had become a really big player for this year.

Top 3 is expected, then #4, #7, and #9 = ??? (I've heard of Ame no Hi no Iris). Then, SeiZon somehow fall all the way to #32, surprised that Sakura-sou (#16 last year) didn't even make Top 60 (Okay, I do have personal bias on that, but still...making Top 60 is not THAT hard, right?)

Of course, from various Japanese sites, Circlet Girl only get up to #4 b/c something like 163 out of 170 points it got is from collaborators (i.e. Author, Critics, etc.)...

As far as Female Character Ranking (It's the most important ranking in the Ko no LN ga Sugoi anyway...), oh well, yet another year of Biribiri. SAO can't quite pull the Index-like sweep last year (#1 in Novel, Male, Female, and Illustrator) and finish #2. Of course, Kuroneko > Kirino and Meat > Yozora = WIN WIN (Surprise that all 4 actually make Top 10 in such a cutthroat competition, though...). Oh, and after the mirage of #3 last year, a certain main heroine falls back to nowhere again.

At the end - I've heard of most of the novels in Top 20 (Not that I read all of them...), but something IS off, just too many no name novels for a ranking based on popularity...(Good thing is that they get more exposure, bad thing is that no namer ARE no namer sometimes for a reason...)

Quote:

Funny, given Haruhi's God-like sales I would had figure her return to be more of a threat, but the title barely made an impression. Their positions were in the lower end of the top ten while SAO had become a really big player for this year.

My personal belief is that, after such a long layoff, as many copies it sales, it just lost some edge. On the other hand, #8 is not really THAT bad if you consider the amount of LNs out there...(Okay, it was #2 during its peak, but Haruhi series is just not at its peak anymore...)

Really ? It's been a strange year, I figured anything could happen especially given it's unholy rise to fame from the Anime so I had fully expect it to enter at number 10.

Besides, as people kept reminding me, popularity and quality are two different things.

Second, I'm actually glad we get some new names and faces this year

EDIT:

Funny, given Haruhi's God-like sales I would had figure her return to be more of a threat, but the title barely made an impression. Their positions were in the lower end of the top ten while SAO had become a really big player for this year.

There's no way IS will get into top 10. If you've read past top 10s, you would know what I mean. And people who vote in this read light novels; they are not anime-only watchers.

Popularity, quality, and sales are different things. FYI, this ranking is poll based, which means it's popularity based.

Enkan has been around for some time and was ranked 44th last year.

Note the polls ended last month. Rettousei (29) was first released in July, with just 2 volumes when the poll ended. Though people who had voted probably read the web version. But this just indicates how strong it is to get Dengeki to commercialize it.

Top 3 is expected, then #4, #7, and #9 = ??? (I've heard of Ame no Hi no Iris). Then, SeiZon somehow fall all the way to #32, surprised that Sakura-sou (#16 last year) didn't even make Top 50 (Okay, I do have personal bias on that, but still...).

Lol, never mind SeiZon, did you see how far Monogatari and Durarara fell

Quote:

Originally Posted by ion475

As far as Female Character Ranking (It's the most important ranking in the Ko no LN ga Sugoi anyway...), oh well, yet another year of Biribiri. SAO can't quite pull the Index-like sweep last year (#1 in Novel, Male, Female, and Illustrator) and finish #2. Of course, Kuroneko > Kirino and Meat > Yozora = WIN WIN.

You missed out Author category as well

This year instead of a sweep of #1 for Index, it still manage to retain a strong grip on the #2 positions

Quote:

Originally Posted by ion475

At the end - I've heard of most of the novels in Top 20 (Not that I read all of them...), but something IS off, just too many no name novels for a ranking based on popularity...

P.S. #57 is Kinsei Tokkyu by Ureshino Kimi

Isn't it better to get some new blood into the mix?

EDIT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by larethian

There's no way IS will get into top 10. If you've read past top 10s, you would know what I mean. And people who vote in this read light novels; they are not anime-only watchers.

Yeah Teh_ping told me the same thing, but you know... It's been a strange year... >.>

Quote:

Originally Posted by larethian

Popularity, quality, and sales are different things. FYI, this ranking is poll based, which means it's popularity based.

I'm certain sales and popularity and more or less linked somehow

Then again, for it's crazy sales numbers, the return of Haruhi didn't really take the rankings by storm as much as I thought.

It's just strange, that's all. It's not like I don't like new blood (Circlet Girl has been around for a LONG time, though...), it just feels weird.

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This year instead of a sweep of #1 for Index, it still manage to retain a strong grip on the #2 positions

Nah, Biribiri is still #1. Of course, knowing the amount of Index-series fan out there, it'll stay that way for awhile...

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Lol, never mind SeiZon, did you see how far Monogatari and Durarara fell

DRRR is explainable, since it did end this year. Not to mention, it never got into Top 10 until last year anyway.

Monogatari series = I really have no clue...unless the newest few is really THAT bad (I'm not a fan of Nisio Isin, so I've no clue...)

SeiZon has been Top 10 for 3 years (#7, #5, #7), though. And it's not like its popularity really fall that far (Sugizaki is #10 male...okay, it's the male ranking), nor the other Top 10 last year (Excluding Bungaku Shoujo, which ends as well) fall THAT far, I mean...

Nah, Biribiri is still #1. Of course, knowing the amount of Index-series fan out there, it'll stay that way for awhile...

I know, I also suspect Kamachi still holds #1 for Author as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ion475

DRRR is explainable, since it did end this year. Not to mention, it never got into Top 10 until last year anyway.

EHHH ?! DRRR ended already ?!?!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ion475

Monogatari series = I really have no clue...unless the newest few is really THAT bad (I'm not a fan of Nisio Isin, so I've no clue...)

When I was visiting the SF months ago (before the announcement of the new season), it seems like things had gonna very serious in monogatari-land.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ion475

SeiZon has been Top 10 for 3 years (#7, #5, #7), though. And it's not like its popularity really fall that far (Sugizaki is #10 male...okay, it's the male ranking), nor the other Top 10 last year (Excluding Bungaku Shoujo, which ends as well) fall THAT far, I mean...

Monogatari was never on the reference list. My surprise wasn't that it dropped in ranking, was more like it showed up at all. I thought they revamped the list so that Kodansha Box label does not qualify (doesn't Kodansha have a new label specifically for LNs now? The winning title of that award thing is getting a short anime that nobody reported anywhere ...).

Either way, I don't think Durarara ended before Baccano wwwww.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Hmmm, and I was just about to suggest creating a new thread to discuss the results Not just to brag or jeer or say "I told you so", but to actually talk about series that most of us never even heard of before Like for example the four new comers in the top 10 Enkan Shoujo, Okalt (do you mean Occult?) Logic, Idolizing! and Ame no Hi no Iris. ANd personally I'm rather interested in Kokoro Connect Series.

The community's still too small. This thread only lives once a year =). That and I think Doraneko is the only one who actively reads more than 10-20 titles a year not counting the absolute most popular ones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by larethian

Note the polls ended last month. Rettousei (29) was first released in July, with just 2 volumes when the poll ended. Though people who had voted probably read the web version. But this just indicates how strong it is to get Dengeki to commercialize it.

And I JUST changed my avatar last night (after violating the signature rule for the 3rd time cause I'm a retard). IT'S DESTINYYYYYYY. kekekeke

Meh! to the first, WOW to the second and as expected from the third. Surprised Yozora finally got a number .

Quote:

Originally Posted by ion475

Oh, and after the mirage of #3 last year, a certain main heroine falls back to nowhere again.

Sigh... nothing to be surprised of, after vol.22 there wasn't any notable scene with that character. I wonder if the author is just getting lead by the public choices rather than himself about characters participations specially about the tittle character .

First, I did make a mistake about DRRR...it's not over yet. But with only 2 volumes come out this year, though, I'm not very surprised that it fell...

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And we have a very niche novel on System Engineers at 25.

At least it's not a complete unknown (Okay, I only saw it on those Amazon Japan recommendation...). Its sale is okay (I only found Vol. 4 on Oricon, and it's like ~11000 for first week, which is better than a bunch of novels, I mean, it did break the 10k barrier...)

As far as sales v. popularity - The bestselling novels are going to be somewhere among the top no matter what anyway...on the other hand, there's Circlet Girl (Seriously, it has been around for 4 years, never went anywhere, and now suddenly it's 4th...)

EDIT: Just noticed another surprised omission in Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai. I mean, knowing that it sales ~30k per volume, at least it's not an unknown and can't even make Top 60, right?

Another Edit: Latest volume of Rettousei (Just released) sale ~50k first week. So it definitely has a following.

Already read that, but i can't deduce where the author plan to take the series to from that teaser XD. It kinda look like a school romcom introduction with a little bit of action setting though. Do I guess it right?

2 to 3 volume per year is actually the norm for the plot heavier title though. Kami memo also only produce 2 volume a year on average(maybe even less). Index's author is just that fast for producing 4-5 300 pages book a year.

2 to 3 volume per year is actually the norm for the plot heavier title though. Kami memo also only produce 2 volume a year on average(maybe even less). Index's author is just that fast for producing 4-5 300 pages book a year.

I was about to say "But he slowed down to just 3 books", then remembered he's also rewriting [Heavy Object] as well as the Railgun Manga & PSP scenario and another game for Square Enix... -_-

It's just strange, that's all. It's not like I don't like new blood (Circlet Girl has been around for a LONG time, though...), it just feels weird.

The strangeness of the ranking is how bipolar it is. To get into the top 10, a title either has to be extremely good at the sales department with no regard to quality, or has extremely good quality regardless of terrible sales. Circlet Girl is a good example. There are only three public (non-collaborator) votes for it and the general light-novel reading public wouldn't even expect it to come up in the ranking at all, let alone top 10.

The 2012 ranking almost seems like mixing two rankings of completely different natures into one, and departs from the previous year's ranking which was more or less a more sophisticated version of annual sales chart.

I suspect that with the increasing popularity of the ranking there was a large influx of causal readers voting in the polls for 2011, diluting the collaborator votes and turning the ranking into a sales chart. To fix the problem and restore the reputation of the ranking, the weight of collaborator votes have been significantly increased in the 2012 ranking. Of course you can never please both sides. This time the mainstream readers scream unfairness.

This is exactly what Shouji Gatou (FMP author) described in 2005 as a discrepancy between the taste of mainstream readers and critics which makes an all-purpose light novel ranking obsolete.

But then what is the point of creating an independent light novel ranking if it is simply another bestseller list? In fact for multiple instances the ranking had picked up gems of the industry ignored by the public. Getting Haruhi or Index in a light novel list is a no-brainer and I think even some random Naruto/Bleach-loving teens in the US can do so without reading one single light novel. But getting quality titles like Mimizuku, All You Need Is Kill, とある飛空士への追憶, ある日、爆弾がおちてきて shows the reference value of the list.

Getting Idolizing and Iris in top 10 is more like allowing the ranking to return to its original purpose instead of pushing the ranking to depart from it (like many mainstream readers feel right now). On the other hand, if the mainstream readers shows too much of a displeasure, there is a good chance that the 2012 ranking will increase the weight of public votes again. After all, the publisher of the ranking relies on the mainstream readers instead of critics for the sales.

Another strangeness is that the mainstream entries in the top 10 are mostly titles from last year's top 10. In fact only SAO is the newcomer. This probably illustrates the problem of the industry in finding a heavy-weight successor to Index/Haruhi rather than some inherent shortcomings of the ranking.

Anyway I include the sales figure of the latest bunko and media mix progress of the 2012 top 10s for your reference. Those with "?" are having too miserable sales (below 10k) to have their figures listed. As you can probably expect, fans of series with 30k-100k sales per book are rioting right now . For me, as long as I can see Iris at any place in top 50 I won't complain at all, but seeing it in top 10 is a pleasant surprise.